I got one of these good looking little DVDs for my girldfriend for her birthday. I'd seen them in Richer Sounds for £99 already multi-regioned up. What a bargain! I did the usual researching on Ciao and the reviews were good. I also checked the prices elsewhere where £130 was the average so off I went and made the purchase.
It has all the functions you would ever want from a DVD player. Nice laid out remote, simple to follow set-up menus, picture and sound both excellent. However, it jumps all over the place when playing less than brand new DVDs. Read on...
I joined one of those DVD clubs where you pay your £15 a month, select a list of the titles you want to watch off of their website and they send 2 out to you with reply paid envelopes. Then each time you send one back, they select and send another one off your list. Fantastic. All those old films I never got round to seeing at the cinema - all on me list. The downside is that the DVDs were, shall we say, well used...
So there we are, settled in for a romantic night in with a copy of 'A Beautiful Mind' and after about 20 minutes it froze, edged forward a frame or two... then jumped back to 10 minutes and continued playing!? This it did a few times with no obvious solution.
So out came the Mr Sheen and I polished that DVD like no tomorrow until I was out of breath. No use, there were the faintest of scratches on the DVD and the Sony DVPNS-305 (rolls of the tongue doesn't it!) would have none of it. Finally we worked out that you have to skip to the next scene and then picture search back to ALMOST the point in which it freezes and continue watching. Not ideal especially when it happens 2 or 3 times for some films.
Anyway, new and cared for DVDs are no problems but scuffed ones are a nightmare. Strangely enough I tried a few of these problematic rental DVDs on a Panasonic DVDplayer I have here at work and it had no problems. I also tried it on my friend's older Sony 405 DVD player and had similar problems so maybe it's a over-sensitive Sony problem.
Still for £99 I can live with it. Word of advice, if you're going to buy one, take your oldest most knackered DVD to the shop and give it a whirl before you buy.
I knew I should have gone for the Toshiba...
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
A good op, its nice to see positive and negative side of it. I also use Richer Sounds to buy my dvd players. There insurance is great at under £20, plus if you take it back to them within the warranty period they will buy it off you for half the price you paid!!.
dkezzla 14.10.2003 16:22
not a bad op but having emphasised the older dvd problem i wont be buying one as i couldnt live with that problem!....kev
No Setup - Just put your batteries in and off you go. Our remote controls are generic ... more
replacements 100% guaranteed money back if not entirely satisfied. Put-Batteries-In-And-Go (This remote has been made for this Tv / Dvd / Freeview box etc, only,so no setup required, no codes to put in) Specifically manufactured in our factory for this make/model. Every remote control is tested before it is dispatched. Our remotes are NOT universal - so you do not need to set them up or put codes into them, just put your batteries in and off you go. Each remote is generically made for the specific DVD / TV / Freeview.
Postage & Packaging:£3.00 Availability:Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days......
No Setup - Just put your batteries in and off you go. Our remote controls are generic ... more
replacements 100% guaranteed money back if not entirely satisfied. Put-Batteries-In-And-Go (This remote has been made for this Tv / Dvd / Freeview box etc, only,so no setup required, no codes to put in) Specifically manufactured in our factory for this make/model. Every remote control is tested before it is dispatched. Our remotes are NOT universal - so you do not need to set them up or put codes into them, just put your batteries in and off you go. Each remote is generically made for the specific DVD / TV / Freeview.
Postage & Packaging:£3.00 Availability:Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days......
Oct 13th, 2003
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